Electronic lead sockets are known for use in circuit boards and in socket bodies for receiving the leads of electronic components. The socket in one well-known form comprises a sleeve having an interior cylindrical bore usually with a tapered entry opening at one end and a interconnection pin such as a solder tail or wire-wrapping tail on the opposite end. Contact fingers are provided within the bore of the sleeve and which pluggably receive the leads of a circuit component. The socket is installed in a plated-through opening of the circuit board by press fitting the sleeve into an associated hole with a portion of the sleeve in intimate engagement with the surrounding hole surface to provide mechanical retention of the socket and electrical connection between the plated hole and socket. The sockets are also employed in an array disposed within a body of insulating material to provide a multiple lead socket in a pattern to accept a corresponding lead pattern of an electronic component.
It is also known to mount sockets onto a carrier strip of flexible material by which the sockets can be coiled onto a reel for ease of transport and for use in automatic or semiautomatic assembly machines. One known version of such a carrier strip mounting is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,938. The socket there shown has a circumferential V-shaped groove provided in the head of the socket adjacent to the entrance opening of the socket, the groove being sized in relation to an opening in a thin carrier strip such that the socket can be snapped into a carrier strip hole and retained on the carrier strip. A plurality of strip-mounted sockets can be installed into cooperative mounting openings of a circuit board and after soldering of the sockets into the board, the flexible strip can be peeled from the soldered sockets.
The dimensions of the circumferential groove must be accurately maintained in relation to the dimensions of the carrier strip hole to provide for suitable retention of the socket on the carrier strip. Loading of the sockets onto the carrier strip is difficult and requires relatively large force to snap the socket through the hole in the strip for seating in the circumferential groove. The formation of the circumferential groove also results in removal of material and thus material waste.